Skip the line at Amazon’s new cashier-less grocery store

by The Media Store

This Monday Amazon opened its first cashier-free grocery store allowing customers to pick up their milk and eggs without having to deal with a queue, register or cashier. The trial store is conveniently located in downtown Seattle at the bottom of Amazon’s head office tower.

Shoppers enter through a turnstile after scanning the Amazon Go app from their phone. After browsing the aisles they’re then free to head towards the exit, their Amazon account is charged for the items they have purchased as they leave the premises.

The store’s unveiling is nearly a year later than originally planned but has been met with great interest. Customers have flocked to the new high-tech convenience store although there have been some teething overcharging/undercharging issues.

Our take

Amazon continuously aims to simplify the consumer’s path to purchase. In the online space they’ve championed the one-click purchase and two-day shipping, making it as convenient as possible for customers to buy online. This is a strategy they could apply to brick-and-mortar stores, especially after the 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods and its 431 store locations. Fresh food is a category Amazon would be interested in cracking – as it hasn’t previously fit in with their online retail offering.

By partnering the cashier-less store with the Amazon Go app the company is also looking to add extra value into membership offerings and could help to bolster their subscription service even further, as stores require an Amazon account to access.

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